Craigslist responds to 'prostitution' claims

[Allanas]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10914334

The paid-for advert in The Washington Post featured a letter from a 17-year-old woman calling herself MC. "I was first forced into prostitution when I was 11 years old by a 28-year-old man," the latter went.

"All day, other girls and I sat with our laptops, posting pictures and answering ads on Craigslist. "I am 17 now, and my childhood memories aren't of my family, going to middle school, or dancing at the prom.

The letter said that Craigslist was now the choice of traffickers because it was "so well known and there are rarely consequences to using it for these illegal acts".

 

[hermafrodite]

Bingo. I came across this article yesterday, an interview with $pread's editor-in-chief, which raises the question of CL as a safer method of free advertising:

MJ: What uber-relevant newsy topics would you like to see $pread tackle in the future?
WR: The "Craigslist Two" letters being circulated, claiming the site profits off of the trafficking in women. It would be more accurate to say that Craigslist profits off of a culture of policing sex workers that results in heavy fines, phone and credit card tracking that has ruined one of the most equalizing forces in the sex industry in generations.
MJ: Could you explain why you consider Craigslist to be "one of the most equalizing forces in the sex industry in generations"?
WR: Craigslist was the most equalizing force in the sex industry in generations because it allowed anyone with a computer to advertise their services for free, from a position of safety, which allows an opportunity for client screening, and without depending on 50-percent-a-client agencies and other dung flies to advertise for you. Craigslist was responsible for moving many people into safer working conditions, and the transition from Erotic Services to Adult Services instituted phone authentication and credit card registration requirements, which open up sex workers to policing in huge registers and represent an oppressive financial burden. Just before the change, Craigslist announced on its blog that 80 percent of ads had been reduced by phone authentication. The Polaris Project estimates there are 3.65 million adult services ads per year Craigslist, which means 14.6 million posters were pushed to other means of advertisement—most likely more dangerous ones that opened them up to stigma, discrimination, and criminalization.

See also this article.

 

[whizzbitz]

I took the [unpaid] job because the first article I read in $pread was in Issue 2.4, named 'I killed a client in self-defense,'" Rockwell told Mother Jones via email. "It is an entirely matter-of-fact story about a woman working an outcall who was stabbed by her client before she took the knife from him and killed him in self-defense. When the police arrived, they arrested her for the murder of a married military officer, but she was later proven innocent. I was impressed that she described her experience without one iota of judgment for sex work in general—in other words, it wasn't the job that was wrong, but the world that surrounds it."

Shocking :gasp: